Archives for: September 2008, 18

A recent issue of my alma mater's review (Brown Alumni Monthly, March/April 2008) features a report on the plans and priorities for its Division of Biology and Medicine, as part of a current fundraising campaign.

I am deeply heartened to discover there a profile of Edward Hawrot, Ph.D., associate dean for the Program in Biology, who is taking his department in the direction of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Hawrot is committed to "facilitat[ing] the research that will make personalized medical practice a reality...This knowledge will revolutionize primary care. Patients can be counseled to change their behaviors, and the earliest signs of disease can be treated swiftly, heading off complications". He continues, "This is the new biology. We are trying to identify genome-wide variants in genes that no one knew were involved in disease states".

Very considerable resources are being brought to bear upon the field. "Brown has made significant investments in genomics and proteonmics facilities and faculty". "Whole-genome surveys of large groups of people" are in the works, to "determine which gene variations will result in a bad reaction to a drug or predispose an individual to a certain disease". Gifts to Brown's campaign for Academic Enrichment are solicited via this article and can be targeted to faculty research in this area, influencing Brown's Program in Public Health and its Warren Alpert Medical School.

We certainly agree with Dr. Hawrot's admission, "One size does not fit all". He may not realize what a grassroots groundswell is well established, already subscribing to blood type science and genotype medicine, thanks to the pioneering and bestselling works of Dr. Peter D'Adamo, and the work of his colleagues, such as Bland, Crinnion, Pizzorno, et al.

Elsewhere, the medical establishment has shown signs of familiarity with D'Adamo's work in a positive light. I personally have recently met two psychiatrists in San Francisco who are acquainted with it and have immense respect for him ("He's brilliant", declared one). Furthermore, each of these two MDs is nutritionally savvy, which I find very encouraging. Both are concerned with memory loss in the elderly and are advocates of antioxidants, B vitamins, et al. One of these doctors spoke to me of Resveratrol and its effects upon DNA; we actually got into methylation and acetylation, and he went on to tell me "There are 'hunters' and there are 'nomads'"...Both of these individuals were USSR-born and USA-trained, one at Mount Sinai and Columbia Presbyterian, the other here in SF.